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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Toroa House, Otago

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep selwyn and knox, merge the rest, most people think this information should exist in some form. Merging is an editorial decision, anyone can do it at their leisure (I just added the mergeto tags per Bduke's suggestion). - Bobet 10:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Toroa House, Otago, Selwyn College, Otago, Knox College, Otago, Studholme Hall, Otago, Arana Hall, Otago, Carrington Hall, Otago, University College, Otago, Salmond Hall, Otago, Cumberland Hall, Otago

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Merge significant content and delete: While I appreciate that a fair bit of work went into the creation of these articles, there is nothing remarkable about any of these dormitories. From Wikipedia:List of bad article ideas "Please think twice before creating an article about any of the following: ...Your dormitory (unless it's on the Historic Register)". Nothing in these articles indicates any sort of significance to these dormitories, other than minor notes of interest. Any significant content should be merged into University of Otago, along the same pattern as other universities (for example Duke_University#Residential_life). Contrast with College Hall (Michigan State University), which unexpectedly collapsed and an image of the hall is still used on the university's seal to this day. Durin 05:17, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete all with no merge, dorms are non-notable. Also, I do not think that anything besides their names could be merged into the article because it would be too long and/or disproportional to the rest of the article. Durin, articles must be made into redirects if content is merged in order to preserve attribution under the GFDL. -- Kjkolb 08:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Firstly, several are registered historic places, and some of the more notable buildings in Dunedin. Secondly, they're not "dorms", and most have their own distinct identities.[User:Limegreen|Limegreen]] 12:42, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
  • If they are registered historic places, then please provide evidence of same. Six out of the nine listed were opened after 1940. I rather doubt the claim these are all considered historic places. Having a distinct identity does not make them notable. As C.fred noted below, "dorms" is a common term to describe residence halls in American English. --Durin 16:53, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Several" does not equal "all" in New Zealand English :)
A number of them are probably similar to the AmE "dorm". My thought on this is that those that are notable (and should be kept) will, given the rivalry between them, lead to their recreation at a future date. Some of them may be a little generic, but they don't seem to be doing much harm. I found out a number of interesting things about Arana (relating to the Colombo Plan), that I had previously been unaware of.
HPT listings: Knox [1], Selwyn [2]--Limegreen 23:25, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hoo-eee! So, er, it appears that the only 3 that I've actually read until now (Knox, Selwyn, Arana) have any real merit. Arana could still do with some cleaning up, and I'm not sure whether it's because it contains more history, or because Arana *is* more notable, but the rest of them seem pretty bad. I'd perhaps revise to keeping those 3 and merging the rest into a non-descript article. --Limegreen 23:30, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Toroa International House is a self-catering Hall of Residence.... It provides accommodation that is welcoming and supportive yet allows residents to live, eat, study and socialise.... In American English usage, that is a dorm(itory). —C.Fred (talk) 14:06, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Selwyn College, Otago, Knox College, Otago as they seem notable, Delete the others as they don't appear to be notable. --RMHED 13:37, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • First, I think there's enough content to keep Selwyn and Knox as stand-alone articles. I am inclined to delete the others, except for this comment from Kjkolb: I do not think that anything besides their names could be merged into the article because it would be too long and/or disproportional to the rest of the article. Based on that argument, perhaps an article along the lines of Houses of the University of Otago would be in order? That starts to feel cumbersome to me, and it's an awkward search term, so do we keep the dorms as redirects? Weak keep Merge and redirect the rest of the articles per the MIT precedent Uppland cites below. —C.Fred (talk) 14:19, 5 August 2006 (UTC), edited 22:00, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge all into one article and redirect them. See e.g. List of MIT undergraduate dormitories and List of Harvard dormitories for precedence. up l and 15:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to single article per Uppland.-gadfium 22:22, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Having been involved with several Commonwealth universities in four Commonwealth countries and having visited several US universities, I do think there is at least a difference of emphasis between US dorms and Commonwealth Colleges and Halls. So let us use Commonwealth nomenclature and Commonwealth precedents rather than US ones. The way these Commonwealth Colleges and Halls are dealt with on WP varies. Some universities have separate articles and some have collective articles. One example of the latter is University of Exeter Halls of Residence that arose after a very similar broad Afd discussion earlier this year. Another is Monash Residential Services, again after a broad Afd discussion. The different title is because that page existed for the organisation that manages the Halls. I agree with the nom that many Hall articles are vanity and are often the first article written on Wikipedia by a member of the Hall. They can suffer from vandalism. Nevertheless they can be made into usefull articles. I think readers of WP have an expectation to be able to find NPOV information on University Colleges and Halls. They are very significant parts of many Commonwealth Universities, particularly the older more established Universities such as the University of Otago. So my view is to keep them all. If that is not the consensus I would support keeping the two Colleges which are really quite notable and which have links to the Church and the training of ministers, and perhaps some others, and merge the rest into a new article University of Otago Halls of Residence. --Bduke 00:50, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. In line with that thinking, I would say that Massey University has something in the line of 'dorms', effectively just different blocks of the same, with shared dining facilities. Some of the newer Colleges here (NB: the university is in the process of changing all of their institutions to 'colleges') are more dorm-ish, but the older ones are moving toward a more Oxford/Cambridge sense of College (albeit perhaps only midway on that continuum).--Limegreen 01:19, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep pre Bduke and Limegreen. At the very least, Selwyn and Knox's articles should be kept with the others merged (if this is done, Salmond's should be merged with Knox's). Grutness...wha? 00:57, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I thought of that option this morning, but I don't anticipate that ex-Salmond residents would take to kindly to that. I'm also inclined to believe that any merge/delete is likely to increase vandalism. --Limegreen 01:19, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You could be right, but FWIW, I'm an ex-Salmond resident, and don't see much of a problem with it. Grutness...wha? 01:43, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: "Wikipedia caters for a multitude of viewers and ex-residents find articles about their former halls very useful about who to contact re: reunions etc. I believe that calling the Halls of Residences (now all offically colleges) dormitaries violates the very tradition in Otago. Some of these halls, eg Selwyn and Knox are officially registered as historic buildings. Infact, Selwyn College is the most popular Hall in New Zealand. We need to keep these articles on Wikipedia so they can be enjoyed by the many people that look them up" Lloyd Burr

  • merge into a single article, none are individually notable (though as others mentioned, some are borderline). Halls of Residence at other NZ varsitys should probably also be looked at. --Mako 07:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Knox and Selwyn are not 'dorms'! Both deserve keeping even outside of their university context, if only for the buildings, history, and alumni. And of course Salmond's shouldn't be merged with Knox's, the one and only similarity is the joint-ownership and governership at a board (not management) level. Understand rationale behind not including 'dorms' but both are prestigious colleges with returning students, illustrious histories and significant buildings. They certainly have an identity outside the university, in a way that other halls at the university simply don't.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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